| DALLAS (AP) The Dallas Stars are celebrating 25 years in Texas by hosting the NHL draft for the first time.The headliner for the home team had a little anniversary of his own: retired franchise icon Mike Modano marking 30 years since he was the No. 1 overall pick by helping introduce the Stars’ first-round pick http://www.clevelandbrownsteamonline.com/jarvis-landry-jersey , Canadian forward Ty Dellandrea, on Friday night.Sharing the stage with high-scoring Dallas winger Jamie Benn, Modano only had to look up to see his No. 9 hanging from the rafters at the other end of American Airlines Center.The highest-scoring U.S.-born player in NHL history was the first pick by the Minnesota North Stars in 1988, five years before the franchise moved to North Texas.”I’ve been thinking about it,” Modano said. ”Didn’t really ring a bell till about a month ago when they started saying some stuff, called me to do some intros. I was like, `Dang, yeah, ’88, 2018.’ I was like, `That was quick.”’Modano watched hockey grow from almost nothing in North Texas, but couldn’t say he was surprised his old franchise got the draft since a new arena that opened in 2001 brought the All-Star game six years later. The 48-year-old figured it was just a matter of time.”I think a lot of things happened along the way that we didn’t think,” Modano said. ”Just kind of gives people a little bit of knowledge of the town. There’s hockey down in Texas and it’s alive and kicking. Brings a lot of attention to this town for hockey for a good week.”Modano gigged the current captain of the Stars during their presentation, saying he wasn’t on stage when Benn got drafted and Benn responding that they didn’t bring fifth-round picks to the stage.Benn, the 2015 Art Ross Trophy winner as the NHL’s points leader, is up to fifth on the club’s career scoring list after getting taken 129th overall in 2007. Benn’s rookie season was Modano’s last in Dallas.”We worked on that for a little bit Authentic Jarvis Landry Jersey ,” Modano said with a smile.Dellandrea, the 13th overall pick, was 10 when Modano retired in 2011 after one season with Detroit. Modano debuted as an 18-year-old with the North Stars and spent 20 seasons combined in Minnesota and Dallas. His American records are 557 goals and 1,359 points.”I might have been a little young,” said the 17-year-old Dellandrea, who spent the past two seasons with Flint of the Ontario Hockey League. ”But both of them have been tremendous role models to look up to as a young hockey player.”Now one of them is a teammate.— TAMPA, Fla. (AP) The Tampa Bay Lightning stormed back in the Eastern Conference final against the Washington Capitals, thanks in part to a thriving power play and suddenly reliable penalty-killing unit.To regain control of the best-of-seven matchup that continues Saturday night, the Caps need a lift from their special teams, too.”The series is tied 2-2,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. ”It doesn’t matter how you got there.”Tampa Bay, which has taken two straight in a series in which the home team has yet to win, believes it hasn’t played its best.Washington was dominant in winning twice on the road, then sputtered – particularly on the Alex Ovechkin-led power play – while dropping the next two games at home.”I think we look at it realistically,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said. ”I mean, I said to everybody in September Authentic Bradley Chubb Jersey , even yesterday, and they’re saying the same thing: Sign me up. Best-of-three, got a chance to maybe go to the Stanley Cup Final, sign me up.”I don’t think anybody thought the series would go four straight or anything like that. There’s two really high-quality teams that are going to go nose-to-nose,” Trotz added. ”There’s twists and turns in the road sometimes. … It’s just another layer of adversity. This group has taken on any adversity that has been thrown its way all year.”Since yielding three power-play goals in the first two games of the series, two of them in the closing seconds of a period, the Lightning have gone 7-for-7 killing penalties over the past two games.Not bad for a team that had one of the most potent power plays (third, 23.9 percent) in the NHL during the regular season, while also ranking among the league’s worst at killing penalties (28th, 76.1 percent).Lightning captain Steven Stamkos has a power-play goal in each of the first four games of the conference final.Six of his seven goals this postseason have come in man-advantage situations, including his franchise-best 11th career playoff power-play goal (snapping a tie with Martin St. Louis) in Game 4 on Thursday night.”Desperation. Realizing how important it is, especially in this series against the group that they have,” Stamkos said of the improved play on the penalty kill.”It starts with the goaltending, and then it starts with guys willing to sacrifice. I think it’s been a challenge,” Stamkos added. ”When the power play is going well like we are, the PK wants to step up and be just as good http://www.denverbroncosteamonline.com/bradley-chubb-jersey , and vice versa when it’s the other way. … It’s been a lot of fun to watch.”Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 36 of 38 shots in Game 4. He has bounced back nicely since allowing 10 goals over five periods in the first two games.Center Nicklas Backstrom, who returned to Washington’s lineup Thursday night after missing four games with a hand injury, thinks the Capitals need to create more traffic in front of the Lightning goaltender.”He’s actually too good of a goalie if you’re going to shoot from outside with no traffic, so maybe we can get some more traffic and find these rebounds like we did the first couple of games,” Backstrom said.”We have pretty good chances. We just don’t execute,” Ovechkin said after the Washington power play was shut out for the second straight game. ”We tried. … We had so (many) shots, and we just didn’t score one more goal.”But just as Tampa Bay embraced the challenge of battling its way back into the series after losing Games 1 and 2, the Capitals are excited about the opportunity ahead, beginning Saturday night.Not only is Washington is 7-1 on the road this postseason, but the Caps went on eliminate Columbus in the first round and Pittsburgh in the conference semifinal in six games after those series were each tied at 2.”I think we’ve played three out of the four games pretty well,” Trotz said. ”I’m not disappointed at all.”The Lightning are confident, too.”Clearly home-ice advantage has been a disadvantage in this series,” Cooper said. ”Now, in saying that, I’d rather have Game 5 at home. I believe we’ll be a different team here than we showed up in Game 1 and 2.”— |
